Mountie admits he Tasered Dziekanski five times due to stapler fear

RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington, who shot the Taser before the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, arrives at the Braidwood inquiry to give testimony Monday.Photo by
Jon Murray

RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington held up a stapler “in the open position” and insisted at the Braidwood inquiry Monday that the small office implement scared him into Tasering Robert Dziekanski.

“That’s what made me fear for the officers’ safety, yes,” said Millington, 32, a six-foot tall, fit former personal trainer who was one of four officers called to the airport on Oct. 14, 2007, when an agitated Dziekanski — who had travelled 24 hours from Poland and spent 10 hours in the Vancouver airport — threw a small TV-type table. Laughter and jeers broke out among audience members at the inquiry as Millington was asked twice by inquiry lawyer Art Vertlieb to stand in the witness box to demonstrate how Dziekanski held the stapler and how “four healthy young officers” with firearms and body armour could possibly have considered the generic tool a threat.

The actual stapler — which flew out of Dziekanski’s hands after he was Tasered — was held up by Millington Monday.

Inquiry commissioner Tom Braidwood, a former appeal court judge, warned the public not to react out loud but appeared exasperated himself more than once, as Millington described versions of the fatal incident that were clearly contradicted by evidence from the bystander video shot by Paul Pritchard.

Asked why the police didn’t take a minute to assess the scene, or even talk to each other or observers before the Tasering, Millington replied: “I believed he was a threat to officers on the scene and I acted to stop that threat."

Millington said that at 1:30 a.m., Dziekanski was “sweating.. wide-eyed and very agitated” as the officers arrived, turned and threw up his hands “in defiance,” then picked up a stapler “and advanced . . . in a combative position.”

Dziekanski lay lifeless and blue on the airport floor within minutes of the four RCMP officers’ arrival at the airport.

Millington admitted that statements he gave to police in October 2007, about why, when and how many times he Tasered Dziekanski were at odds with the Pritchard video, which wasn’t aired publicly until November 2007.

Millington, a Mountie since 2005 who was trained on the Taser just three months before he used it on Dziekanski, fired the Taser five times at Dziekanski for a combined total of 31 seconds.

Millington admitted it was his first and only on-duty use of the Taser. On the Pritchard video, Dziekanski goes down howling in pain after the first Taser shot, but Millington insisted in his Oct. 14, 2007 police statement: “He seemed to feel the effects of the Taser but didn’t fall due to that . . . once I had (hit him with the Taser more than once) the members moved in because he hadn’t gone to the ground.”

Shown the video, Millington admitted, “He fell to the ground on his own . . . I didn’t realize that.”

On Monday afternoon, when Millington’s lawyer Ravi Hira asked him to reiterate his belief that Dziekanski didn’t fall with the first Taser shot, Braidwood asked Millington how he could possibly insist the man was still standing “when he was on the ground howling with his legs in the air.”

Millington said he Tasered Dziekanski four times, but admitted Monday evidence shows the Taser was fired five times, at least twice in the “stun” mode applied directly to the body.

Millington said he kept firing to achieve “pain compliance,” so Dziekanski could be handcuffed behind his back and replied “No,” when Braidwood asked if Millington had ever considered that Dziekanski might have been reacting to pain rather than resisting handcuffs.

Millington also said the Taser wasn’t delivering the full 50,000 volts at all times because it made a loud “clacking.”

Millington said that despite his own first-aid ticket, he thought it prudent not to help Dziekanski but to wait for an ambulance.

Richmond Fire Capt. Kirby Graeme has testified that as the first paramedic on the scene, he was shocked to see Mounties “standing around” not monitoring Dziekanski, who was lying motionless and blue. The inquiry continues.

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